Prospects are good for engineers looking for work

THE number of engineers employed in Queensland grew by more than 40% between 2006 and 2011, a report from Engineers Australia has revealed.

Partly on the back of the state's boom in mining and gas industry construction, 13,001 more engineers were employed in Queensland in real terms on Census night 2011.

The rise was detailed in an industry report, analysing the latest Census data from the Australian Bureau of Statistics.

It found the rise in supply of engineers in Queensland was equivalent to 7.1% growth every year for the past four years, above the national growth rate of 5.6%.

About two-thirds of that rise in Queensland came from overseas-born engineers, lower than the national figure, which saw three quarters of the increase come from overseas workers.

While the figures for Queensland were high, major projects in Western Australia and the Northern Territory pipped the sunshine state for the leading figures.

Engineers Australia chief executive Stephen Durkin said the resources boom had led the growth, with the emergence of major energy, oil and gas projects.

"Western Australia and the NT led the charge, with demand for engineers expanding by a staggering 53.5% and 37.5% respectively," he said.

But while the mining sector drove much of the growth, it remained the sixth largest employer industry of engineers nationally.

And in Queensland the top six industries for an engineer to be in were:

consulting 37.3%;

mining 14%;

transport, postal and warehousing 7.1%;

construction 12.2%;

manufacturing 5.8% and

the electricity, water and gas sector 5.8%.

But despite the large rise in supply, demand for engineers in Queensland and nation-wide was still outstripping supply, with the state demand rising 6.9% every year for the past four years, and nationally at a rate of 5.5% each year since 2006.